Dr. Geoffrey D. Dabelko

Dr. Geoffrey D. Dabelko is Professor and Director of the Environmental Studies Program at the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University in Athens, OH. He teaches and conducts research on natural resources, conflict, and peacebuilding; global environmental politics; climate change and security; and environmental leadership. He is currently focusing on the conflict and peacebuilding potential of climate change responses and co-directing an environmental peacebuilding study abroad program in the Balkans.

From 1997-2012, he served as director of the Environmental Change and Security Program (ECSP), a nonpartisan policy forum on environment, population, and security issues at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. He continues to work as a senior advisor to the Wilson Center where he works with policymakers, practitioners, and scholars grappling with the complex connections that link environment, health, population, conflict, and security.

Dabelko has directed grants from a range of international and national organizations such as the UN Environment Program and the US Agency for International Development. He was principal investigator for USAID-funded efforts including the “Health, Environment, Livelihoods, Population and Security (HELPS) Project” and the “Resources for Peace Project.” He worked previously at Foreign Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an adjunct professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and has taught at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.

Dabelko is co-editor of Green Planet Blues: Critical Perspectives on Global Environmental Politics (5th ed., 2014) and Environmental Peacemaking (2002). He was a lead author for the 5th assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group II Chapter 12 on Human Security released in 2014. Other recent publications appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Climatic Change, Environment, Environment, and Ensia. Dabelko is a member of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict, and Peacebuilding and an advisory board member of Screenscope’s “Journey to Planet Earth” PBS documentary initiative. On campus, he serves as chair of the Kennedy/Frontiers in Science Lecture Committee and is a member of the Ohio University Press Board.

Dabelko has a Ph.D. in government and politics from the University of Maryland and an AB in political science from Duke University.